The Absence of the Sun
by butterfly-pieces
Summary: One-Shot/Short Ficlet. Krista has lost her brother, her mother, her uncle, her humanity and now, Marcus. Just when she thinks it's time to end her immortality, something might arrive in order to change her mind. Marcus/Krista


**Beta'd By: **My dear friend and Bobbette, Erin *holds tightly*

**Disclaimer:** The usual. I don't own anything. Not even my sanity. Well, maybe Sabine, but that's not much, considering.

**Note:** Inspired by the prompt (given through an LJ community): "sunrise"

**Note 2: **It's meant to be read as a one-shot so, even if it feels like there's more to it, there will be no fanfic-continuation (I hope), so don't ask for it, please?

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**-|- ... -|-**

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**She's standing on the rooftop of the building, the one across from where she first met Marcus, and she couldn't have chosen a better place to do it.

It's the place where it all started.

Would she have done anything different?

Fuck, yes.

She would've shot Marcus, without warning — without even the courtesy of luring him out into the open — had she known the hell that awaited her if she didn't.

He turned her.

He _**killed**_ her brother and then he turned _**her**_, against her will.

Marcus Van Sciver turned her due to his unexplainable fixation and, then, expected her to play nice with the family.

She always thought he was cracked.

"Pretentious bastard," she mutters, taking off her leather jacket as she stares at the night sky, wishing she could shiver in the cold morning, but she doesn't feel the cold, not really.

She **is** cold.

She takes off her boots next, hoping she'll feel the cold then, but she doesn't.

Blade.

She should've shot him, too, for luring her brother into this world of vampire politics.

"If people can't play fair in the world of politics, how the hell do you think vampires will play?" she had asked him once.

Thanks to Blade, she lost her brother, her mother, her uncle — fine, Marcus was at fault for most of those happening, but, if it hadn't been for Blade's primary involvement, none of it would've happened.

She would've come back from Iraq to her brother.

She would've been **home**.

But, now, she's not.

She's in Detroit, after the fall of the House of Chthon, after Blade finally did half of what he set out to do.

"There are still more," he had told her, "blood-suckers to be ashed."

She had almost said yes — what other purpose could she have?

But she couldn't do it.

She couldn't do **anything**.

Before, being on both sides — working with Marcus _**and**_ Blade — she felt like a human playing the part of a vampire for the sake of a façade, but, with Marcus gone, as senseless as it is, she doesn't feel an ounce of humanity inside her.

She feels like a full-on vampire, being used to get into places Blade or Shen can't get to.

She doesn't feel human when working with them.

Marcus made her feel human... how?

"The same way the sun will," she thinks.

In a way, Marcus was her sun, the one thing that made her skin burn and sizzle, made it crawl inside itself and boil until she felt like dying.

She smiles at the irony, feeling the sunrise getting closer, and she unbuttons her jeans, pulling down the zipper before she takes them off.

If she's going to do this, she might as well be comfortable.

She remembers that moment — the moment when she realized Marcus was gone.

It was the last time she betrayed him — one of many — but she didn't think this one would kill him.

She saw that scared young woman holding a shaking stake in her hand, saw the pile of ash and even his watch, but nothing would've convinced her — nothing — like Isabel's necklace.

The night before, he had offered it to her again — looking to amend past wrongdoings, to fix _**them**_.

Krista refused it, refused _**him**_, accusing him of having his lackeys follow her around just to make sure she wasn't working for Blade.

He had been right not to trust her again.

"He knew you were coming," the young woman had said to her — a prostitute or a junkie, or both, Krista realized, once she took a closer look at the girl's arms. "He asked me to do it — I didn't want to, he said he'd kill me if I didn't, he said—"

"Shut up!" Krista didn't want to believe it.

Marcus Van Sciver? Suicidal? No.

"Why you?" Krista asked. "Why did he ask you to kill him?" She pulled the girl closer, hands on her shoulder, trying to detect the tiniest hint of dishonesty in the girl.

The girl's blue eyes stared back — wide and unblinking — scared for her life. "I don't know," she stammered, before giving her a real answer. "He was just a job. He was just another job."

Now _**that**_ she couldn't believe. Marcus would never pay for sex.

"But he didn't want me," the girl continued, catching Krista's attention again. "He just kept talking and talking—please, can I just go now?"

"No," Krista squeezed her shoulders a little too hard, "Tell me what he said."

She swallowed, blinking the coming tears away, "I don't remember everything... He asked me if I believed in second chances..."

Krista could hear his voice as she spoke the words:

"Do you believe in second chances? I believed in them. I believed we all had second chances — a second chance for revenge, redemption, succession, even love... but it's all been wasted now. She's coming. A woman will come here, intent to destroy me. Fortunately, for her, I'll already be dead. You will kill me or be killed, your choice."

"I didn't want to die," the girl's voice was clear then and Krista blinked away the truth of it, nodding as she finally let the girl go. "He made me do it. I didn't want to die."

"Come on." Shen was the one to pull the girl away and Blade just stared at Krista, wondering what was left of her.

Just a necklace and a message, that's all he left behind.

"And a sunrise," she mutters, unbuttoning her blouse.

If she's going to feel the sun one last time, she wants to do it as freely as possible.

It _**feels**_ stupid, she knows, but she reminds herself that she's not doing this for Blade, for Marcus, for being a vampire or being human.

She's doing this for all that there isn't in her life.

It's the absence of the sun that she's about to fill.

"Is this what you really want?"

She hears his voice behind her and she dismisses it as her head playing games.

It's almost funny.

She didn't come home crazy from Iraq, but, with a little thirst and serum-deprivation, she's hearing the voice of Marcus Van Sciver.

Yes, it's almost hilarious.

"You're dead," she almost laughs.

"Clearly," he responds, and it's almost comical how real he sounds to her.

"Figures," she mutters.

"Do you think we'll meet on the other side?" His voice is behind her, but she's not turning around to look.

The sun is going to rise and she wants to see it when it does.

"I hope not," she answers.

"You never loved me, then?"

She scoffs. Even in her head, it always comes down to 'love'.

"You never trusted me."

"With reason," he's quick to answer.

"True."

"You never answered my question. You never could answer that question. Did you love me, Krista?"

"Not enough."

"Not enough?"

"Not enough to kill for you," she answers, looking past her shoulder to see that there's nothing there and it's almost disappointing — almost.

"But enough to die for me?"

She laughs, "Don't stroke your ego, Marcus, this isn't for you."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"I need the tan."

"Krista," a pause, "Why are you killing yourself?"

And suddenly, she feels it — them — his arms on her shoulder and it's worse than the sun.

This burns her from the inside out.

It almost restarts her heart.

"Tell me, why are you meeting the sunrise?"

She gapes for a moment, looking ahead, frozen, "I hate myself."

"Why?"

She lifts her hands, shaking, to touch his fingers and they feel real but they can't be.

It has to be the thirst — it has to be her crazy, fucking head.

"Everything. Mom, Uncle Pat, my brother... Blade."

"All of that is past now, Krista. It's not a reason worth dying for."

"But they're gone," the sky is beginning to break, the darkness is crying, being seared by the distant rays of the sun.

"You have nothing worth living for, is that it? Are you not enough?"

She scoffs, "I never bought into all the bullshit you said about us being a superior race, Marcus. I don't want to live forever, off a serum, working with Blade, killing vampires, being reminded that..." She stops, hissing.

She's starting to feel _**heat**_.

Very soon the sun _**will**_ rise.

"That, what?"

"I'm not giving you the pleasure."

"You will never admit it, will you? You can't live without me."

In spite of things, she smiles, "I can't even die without you, apparently."

The sun.

It's starting to hurt, the simple presence of warmth, even if the UV rays have yet to rise fully.

"And you won't."

In a movement too quick for her to catch, Marcus snatches her wrists and drags her from the floor, pulling her inside the building and holding her against his chest, where even he smells a little burnt.

She looks up, wide-eyed, mouth partly open as she breathes in everything — burning flesh, smoke, and Marcus.

"You're not dead."

He looks down the stairs, notes the area as empty, and opens his coat to cover her. "Yes, I am. I'm a vampire, aren't I?"

She pushes herself away from him, nakedness be damned — although the bra and underwear cover enough.

"The girl, she ashed you."

"Just a well-paid actress," Marcus shoves his hands in his pockets, his face solemn. "Playing the role of her life."

"Why?"

"It took me a while, but I finally figured it out."

"That I was betraying you?"

"No, _**that**_, I always knew. What I did not know was the reason behind your betrayal. You felt an obligation to Blade, to finish what your useless brother was never capable of doing, to bring me and the House of Chthon to the ground. What if you did accomplish it? What reason would Krista Starr have to continue with Blade?"

"You son of a bitch," she's not sure why, but she feels angry, very angry.

He smiles at her rage — he almost always does, "If you continued with Blade, then I would've been wrong. You would've had a reason I knew nothing of; however, if I was right, then your only reason with Blade was your connection to me, and if that was severed, perhaps you'd finally realize what else was lost." He approaches her, reaching for the necklace she's wearing — Isabel's.

"I can't believe you played me." She allows herself a smile, just a small one.

"No, Krista, you played yourself, I merely watched for far too long until I decided it was time to end the game, once and for all. To give you a second chance."

She stares, hearing his offer but not quite believing it, "You're asking me... to do what, exactly?"

He frowns, letting go of the necklace, his hand touching her shoulder now, and her neck, until he's cupping her cheek in his hand. He doesn't hesitate.

He pulls her into a kiss, starving, both of them ready to take each other right then and there, but he stops, fangs ready to do more than just sink into her neck.

"Krista, I want you at my side, _**my**_ side, not Blade's. I want you as my equal, my partner, but, for that, I need to trust you."

"Marcus, don't—" she tries to interrupt, but he continues.

"I cannot stop being what we both are. I will rise amongst the purebloods; I will end their reign and be amongst the council. That is my goal."

She shakes her head, wishing he hadn't kissed her before telling her that.

"Marcus, you know I can't. I won't."

"Yes, you can, Krista. It's either us, or the other choice you were so willing to make moments ago," he looks at the closed door, where light can already be seen under the doorway. "I will never ask you to take a human life, Krista, not unless you wish it. I know you're far too willful to break in that aspect."

She looks up at him, "So, I'm Persephone now?"

He smiles, slightly impressed at the reference.

"You could be."

"I wonder if I can get a seasonal pass to see the sun and smell the flowers," she asks, her smile laced with sarcasm.

"For you, I will complete project Aurora."

That shocks her.

"If you will join me."

Days ago, she thought she lost him and felt the absence of so many things... felt the absence of her own, personal sun.

Moments ago, she was ready to meet the sun, as a final farewell, to him, to everything.

Now, the sun is asking the moon if they can rise, side by side, and she knows that it's not possible, not without some serious consequences. But, for now... she's choosing him.

She's choosing Marcus.

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**FINIS**


End file.
